There were Mariners three on the silver sea
On the sea were Mariners three
And one was Greed and one One was Hate
And the other was Destiny oh yes
The other was Destiny
There were Mariners three on the silver sea
On the sea were Mariners Three
And one was Greed and one was Hate
And the other was Destiny
Tell me now my blue eyed son
Why do Mariners sail?
Oh there are two journeys that you take
And one of them is inside you, oh yes
The greatest one is inside you
The ship is all that Life entails
And Death the sea it sails
And Greed and Hate had been fighting of late
And a storm brewed in the air oh yes
A storm brewed in the air
The ship is all that Life entails
And Death the sea it sails
And Greed and Hate had been fighting of late
And a storm brewed in the air
Tell me now my blue eyed son
Why do you Mariners sail?
Oh there are two journeys that you take
And one of them is inside you, oh yes
The greatest one is inside you
Now Destiny says "Listen boys,
Can you hear that thunder sound"
But Greed and Hate preferred to fight
And so they nearly drowned oh yes
So they nearly drowned
Now Destiny says "Listen boys
Can you hear that thunder sound
But Greed and Hate preferred to fight
And so they nearly drowned
Tell me my blue eyed son
Why do Mariners sail?
Oh there are two journeys you can take
And one of them is inside you
The greatest one is inside you
The ship went down with a gurgling sound
Struck by a lightning bolt
And the fueding two had to cling to a raft
All in the sea so cold oh yes
All in the sea so cold
The ship went down with a gurgling sound
Struck by a lightening bolt
And the fueding two had to cling to a raft
All in the sea so cold
Tell me now my blue eyed son
Why do Mariners sail?
Oh there are two journeys you can take
The greatest one is inside you
Monday, 27 September 2010
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Mutiny; Etaples 1917.
The untold Ballade of Percy Toplis
It was at Etaples in Nineteen Seventeen
At the Bullring Base Camp where training was extreem
Behind the Western Front oh boys it was not fun
Yet here it was the British Army‘s mutiny began
The official records do not tell the tale
Yet for those concerned their memories did not fail to
Remember Percy Toplis the outlaw in disguise
Who lead the men in mutiny and broke Brittania‘s pride
Several thousand soldiers all absent without leave
And driven to a hatred by what they had received
From Redcaps and Canaries and Military Police
Who‘d made their lives a misery, yet got their relief
Watch out for the Master of Disguise
You risked a court marshall and firing squad at dawn
For desertion, cowardice or staying home too long
But mutiny was the card that Private Toplis played
And mutiny was had and might just have saved the day
Posing as an officer was something he did well
Though from a colliery town you would never tell
He took on High Command and gave them merry hell
And without any compromise he bent them to his will
Lions led by donkeys had been said of the British
Fighting wars colonial a picture that fitted
Commandante Brigadier General Andrew Graham Thompson
Whose Nemesis was Toplis and so that General failed
Lets hear it for the Master of Disguise
A tiny hump in Flanders known as Passchendaele Ridge
Was where the British Captains planned their next offensive
But from there the Germans proved impossible to wrest
And in the mud one quarter million met their deaths
Storms had blown away all British Hospital tents
When Germans dropped seven bombs which killed some U.S. heads
America went crazy but Britons were dismayed
For they had been dying there for years and never fuss was made
Morale was very low but one thing made it snap
When at the Base Camp a lad talked to a lass
His tunic was unbuttoned, this was improper dress
A Military Policeman shot the soldier dead
So a murder sparked this whole skaboosh
The lad had been a Scotsman, the lass from Aberdeen
This set the Gordon Highlanders up a head of steam
A piper blasted out their Regimental Tune
And to the Bridge the raving rebels moved
Second Lieutenant James Davies Royal Fusiliers
Faced them off under orders and heard their riotous jeers
But many of those behind him were friends of the mutineers
The piper reached his step and made intentions clear
"We got nothing against ye Sir, but I must ask ye tae step aside
But we ll turn the machine guns against ye if you dont comply"
So Davies wisely stepped aside and so was took the bridge
Other officers followed suite, no resistance did they give
So mutineers swept up others like the tide
"Down with the Redcaps! Release the prisoners!"
Shouted a Canadian, echoed by his men
Orders came to fire but obey they would not do
So officers held Three Arch Bridge and fist fights ensued
Advantage was to the officers, two soldiers thrown on the track
That took soldiers daily to the Front Line and back
But this did not last for long, advantage it turned round
And fifteen hundred mutineers roared into town
Cafes were smashed into, beer and wine rolled to the streets
Soldiers were hunting down terrified Military Police
And those hated Redcaps and Canaries, trainers at the Bull Ring
Hid in peoples houses but still got their heads kicked in.
Mutineers had crashed the town and left police for dead
The centre of Etaples soon became a wreck
With a bonfire of the barrels, soldiers out of check
For New Zealanders, Australians, Scotsmen, Irish, Welsh and English
It must have been a bloody Sunday very much relished
However the report that General Thompson made
Mentions some stones being thrown but little gives away
For soldiers from all round the world who stayed at that Hell Camp
The time had come right there and then to have some of their own back
One hundred mutineers crashed an officers meeting
To give them their ultimatum or else get burned that evening
Thompson and twelve others were stuffed into a truck
And pitched into the river, told to go to ....
From that point mutiny spread like a wild fire
Bolsheviks in Russia, failed mutiny in France,
Deserters in Camiers chalk pits, the Somme and other parts
All now fanned the fires of an insurrections blaze
And so it was the rioting lasted for five days
Not all the actions of the mutineers were on course
Such as gang-raping the women of the WAAC Corps
So a special guard was set up to sentinel their quarters
And a father harpooned a soldier raping his daughter
Many mutineers linked up with the deserters
Living in the woods of nearby Paris Plage
Percy Toplis too had gravitated down there
Where they called him "The General" and so they all fell to
Toplis said get the police not the girls and was obeyed
The second day of mutiny saw Toplis and One Hundred
Marching to Etaples in the late afternoon
Where they met with Thompson touring in his staff car
Trying to get order and pretty desparate too
His vehicle was rocked till Toplis held up his hand
Then the Commandante begged that he stop the riot
Up on the cars running boards Toplis gave conditions
For which General Thompson would soon come to give permission
The Revolt would end when Etaples was thrown open,
Military Police removed, the Bull Ring closed down,
Food and the conditions had to be much better
He stepped down from the running boards and let Thompson go
'Private' Toplis had dressed for the occasion
All the conditions that Toplis made were met
The Bull Ring was closed down and men got better pay
General Graham Thompson was taken out of office
In his place came Field Commander General Haig
Of course this did not stop the War that took some more time
But by all reports soldiers preferred the Front Line
With incompetent leaders that mendacity endorsed
Sure the course of history could have been much worse
Francis Percy Toplis melted into the scenery
Continuing his sublime line in confidence trickery
He was caught one time and put inside a prison
But he easily escaped through a hole he had been digging
Percy Toplis the master of Disguise
After escapades of much audacious skill
The force of High Command moved in for the kill
With his wanted poster everywhere and being framed for murder
The papers had the best fugitive story ever to occur
He was ambushed and shot by a church in Cumbria
But on what authority was never made too clear
His post humus trial passed over much felt not fit or right
And a thorough enquiry did not greet the light
And so I ask you as a jury of your time
Who was it here did the most heinous crime?
Toplis : 23, a racketeer, mutineer, piano player and conman
Or officers who killed by proxy millions in these lands?
(no chorus, just guitar chords)
I say lets hear it for the monacled mutineer
An accessory he wore as a badge of his career
A Master of Disguise so complete as to fool them all
A disguise that he used so well to fool the makers of that war
Percy Toplis Master of Disguise
Percy Toplis Master of Disguise
It was at Etaples in Nineteen Seventeen
At the Bullring Base Camp where training was extreem
Behind the Western Front oh boys it was not fun
Yet here it was the British Army‘s mutiny began
The official records do not tell the tale
Yet for those concerned their memories did not fail to
Remember Percy Toplis the outlaw in disguise
Who lead the men in mutiny and broke Brittania‘s pride
Several thousand soldiers all absent without leave
And driven to a hatred by what they had received
From Redcaps and Canaries and Military Police
Who‘d made their lives a misery, yet got their relief
Watch out for the Master of Disguise
You risked a court marshall and firing squad at dawn
For desertion, cowardice or staying home too long
But mutiny was the card that Private Toplis played
And mutiny was had and might just have saved the day
Posing as an officer was something he did well
Though from a colliery town you would never tell
He took on High Command and gave them merry hell
And without any compromise he bent them to his will
Lions led by donkeys had been said of the British
Fighting wars colonial a picture that fitted
Commandante Brigadier General Andrew Graham Thompson
Whose Nemesis was Toplis and so that General failed
Lets hear it for the Master of Disguise
A tiny hump in Flanders known as Passchendaele Ridge
Was where the British Captains planned their next offensive
But from there the Germans proved impossible to wrest
And in the mud one quarter million met their deaths
Storms had blown away all British Hospital tents
When Germans dropped seven bombs which killed some U.S. heads
America went crazy but Britons were dismayed
For they had been dying there for years and never fuss was made
Morale was very low but one thing made it snap
When at the Base Camp a lad talked to a lass
His tunic was unbuttoned, this was improper dress
A Military Policeman shot the soldier dead
So a murder sparked this whole skaboosh
The lad had been a Scotsman, the lass from Aberdeen
This set the Gordon Highlanders up a head of steam
A piper blasted out their Regimental Tune
And to the Bridge the raving rebels moved
Second Lieutenant James Davies Royal Fusiliers
Faced them off under orders and heard their riotous jeers
But many of those behind him were friends of the mutineers
The piper reached his step and made intentions clear
"We got nothing against ye Sir, but I must ask ye tae step aside
But we ll turn the machine guns against ye if you dont comply"
So Davies wisely stepped aside and so was took the bridge
Other officers followed suite, no resistance did they give
So mutineers swept up others like the tide
"Down with the Redcaps! Release the prisoners!"
Shouted a Canadian, echoed by his men
Orders came to fire but obey they would not do
So officers held Three Arch Bridge and fist fights ensued
Advantage was to the officers, two soldiers thrown on the track
That took soldiers daily to the Front Line and back
But this did not last for long, advantage it turned round
And fifteen hundred mutineers roared into town
Cafes were smashed into, beer and wine rolled to the streets
Soldiers were hunting down terrified Military Police
And those hated Redcaps and Canaries, trainers at the Bull Ring
Hid in peoples houses but still got their heads kicked in.
Mutineers had crashed the town and left police for dead
The centre of Etaples soon became a wreck
With a bonfire of the barrels, soldiers out of check
For New Zealanders, Australians, Scotsmen, Irish, Welsh and English
It must have been a bloody Sunday very much relished
However the report that General Thompson made
Mentions some stones being thrown but little gives away
For soldiers from all round the world who stayed at that Hell Camp
The time had come right there and then to have some of their own back
One hundred mutineers crashed an officers meeting
To give them their ultimatum or else get burned that evening
Thompson and twelve others were stuffed into a truck
And pitched into the river, told to go to ....
From that point mutiny spread like a wild fire
Bolsheviks in Russia, failed mutiny in France,
Deserters in Camiers chalk pits, the Somme and other parts
All now fanned the fires of an insurrections blaze
And so it was the rioting lasted for five days
Not all the actions of the mutineers were on course
Such as gang-raping the women of the WAAC Corps
So a special guard was set up to sentinel their quarters
And a father harpooned a soldier raping his daughter
Many mutineers linked up with the deserters
Living in the woods of nearby Paris Plage
Percy Toplis too had gravitated down there
Where they called him "The General" and so they all fell to
Toplis said get the police not the girls and was obeyed
The second day of mutiny saw Toplis and One Hundred
Marching to Etaples in the late afternoon
Where they met with Thompson touring in his staff car
Trying to get order and pretty desparate too
His vehicle was rocked till Toplis held up his hand
Then the Commandante begged that he stop the riot
Up on the cars running boards Toplis gave conditions
For which General Thompson would soon come to give permission
The Revolt would end when Etaples was thrown open,
Military Police removed, the Bull Ring closed down,
Food and the conditions had to be much better
He stepped down from the running boards and let Thompson go
'Private' Toplis had dressed for the occasion
All the conditions that Toplis made were met
The Bull Ring was closed down and men got better pay
General Graham Thompson was taken out of office
In his place came Field Commander General Haig
Of course this did not stop the War that took some more time
But by all reports soldiers preferred the Front Line
With incompetent leaders that mendacity endorsed
Sure the course of history could have been much worse
Francis Percy Toplis melted into the scenery
Continuing his sublime line in confidence trickery
He was caught one time and put inside a prison
But he easily escaped through a hole he had been digging
Percy Toplis the master of Disguise
After escapades of much audacious skill
The force of High Command moved in for the kill
With his wanted poster everywhere and being framed for murder
The papers had the best fugitive story ever to occur
He was ambushed and shot by a church in Cumbria
But on what authority was never made too clear
His post humus trial passed over much felt not fit or right
And a thorough enquiry did not greet the light
And so I ask you as a jury of your time
Who was it here did the most heinous crime?
Toplis : 23, a racketeer, mutineer, piano player and conman
Or officers who killed by proxy millions in these lands?
(no chorus, just guitar chords)
I say lets hear it for the monacled mutineer
An accessory he wore as a badge of his career
A Master of Disguise so complete as to fool them all
A disguise that he used so well to fool the makers of that war
Percy Toplis Master of Disguise
Percy Toplis Master of Disguise
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Saturday, 4 September 2010
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